1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a rotary combustion engine, comprising essentially a peripheral housing, a front housing plate, a rear housing plate, a piston, and an eccentric shaft. The triangular piston supported on the eccentric shaft rotates inside the peripheral housing between the front and rear housing plates along an epitrochoidal orbit with a long axis and short axis to form three working spaces separated from each other by the tips of the piston, where shaft seals and piston seals seal off the oil-carrying interior space of the internal combustion engine against the atmosphere and against the working space. The piston is sealed off against the front and rear housing plates by arcuate strips, which, during operation, pass over a surface on each plate which is bounded radially on the inside by an envelope curve.
2. Description of the Related Art
In rotary combustion engines of the known design, primarily ring-shaped constructions of piston ring material are used in series production to seal off the interior of the piston against leakage gas, which is under high pressure in the working space during the combustion phase and passes around the arcuate strips. These constructions were expensive to produce and did not offer sufficient sealing protection against oil leakage in the idle state of the machine. To provide such protection, additional sealing measures in the form of “standing” seals were necessary, which were associated with their own set of functional problems. Tests with elastic seals in place of the ring-shaped constructions of piston ring material were unsuccessful, because it was found too difficult to control lip seals acting in the axial direction in such a way that they exert uniform contact pressure, nor were these seals able over the long term to deal with the pulsations of leakage gas which occurred at high pressure differences.